


turn your face away

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-27 01:08:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7597405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In addition to what she was sent for, Daisy returns from the Playground with an unexpected gift.</p>
            </blockquote>





	turn your face away

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt "you're trying to seduce me, aren't you?" from isissisi8, which absolutely got out of control.

There is a familiar, pleasant hum in the back of Hive’s mind as he and Sk- _Daisy_ speak. He imagines it is a result of the recent proximity - or perhaps Lucio’s current proximity. He may be dead, but the parasites in his system are still alive and perhaps it is through them he feels it.

Regardless, he feels more joy in the conversation with Daisy than Grant Ward alone would lend him. He holds her and comforts her and enjoys her peace - peace he has granted to her - almost as much as the hum.

He would like to sink into both sensations for as long as possible, but there is work to be done and SHIELD will be on the move now that they know he has one of their own. “What you’re feeling,” he says, reluctantly breaking the spell of the moment, “must be shared with others.” Below them, the city stretches out, full to bursting with pain and suffering and hatred. Soon that will be a distant memory, but his healing must begin with those who are already his people.

Daisy nods against his shoulder and, with reluctance of her own, straightens. She wipes at her eyes, and he grants her the courtesy of pretending he does not notice. “I know a few,” she says, “but SHIELD has most of them protected, and-”

Her hesitation draws his attention from the city. She is nervous, almost frightened. She shouldn’t be afraid of anything anymore, especially not in his presence.

“I brought what you wanted,” she says quickly, “but …” Her mouth hangs open, whatever she means to say stalled on her tongue. She turns to the trees behind them - no, not to the trees, to the ground beneath them.

He took only a passing notice of the bag lying there when he approached her, knowing it must contain what he sent her back for. He did not, until now, notice the sleeping body lying beside it, half-hidden beneath the foliage.

“She wanted to come,” Daisy says. “She didn’t say why but … she wouldn’t let me leave without her. I didn’t know what to do, I-”

He crosses the stretch of dirt and grass to kneel at Jemma’s side. The hum makes more sense now, though that understanding leaves him with the question of _why_. But Daisy has already said she doesn’t know. “She’s not hurt?” he asks, looking her over for signs of injury. She is bound, hands and ankles, with simple zip ties.

“No-” Daisy kneels beside him- “I used an ICER. I didn’t want her to … attack, or something.”

He hums low in his throat. She was right to be cautious, Jemma is surprisingly dangerous when she chooses to be. She knows him better than any of Coulson’s people, than anyone on this world, and that before he practically handed her a corpse filled with his parasites for study.

He brushes a stray lock of hair from her face, and the hum turns to a buzzing in his skin.

“We could leave her,” Daisy says- pleads, really. She’s afraid he’ll kill her friend. “She’ll be fine, and coming to get her would distract SHIELD.”

“No,” he says. Jemma came to him, and he will know why.

There are men down the path, HYDRA agents sworn to his cause, who would consider carrying a sleeping woman a gift of an order, but Hive takes her into his arms himself and heads for the vehicles. Daisy gathers up the bag and follows.

 

 

\-------

 

 

Jemma wakes hours later, when they’re already en route to retrieve the other half of the summoner. The hum snaps, turning discordant as instinctual fear overpowers her briefly. In a matter of seconds her breathing has evened out and her expression returned to impassive. He wouldn’t know she’s still terrified if he couldn’t feel it.

Her bonds were cut before they left California, and so he wastes no time in standing. A brief pause invites her to follow him and, somewhat surprisingly, she does. They leave the bevy of agents behind for one of the jump jet’s more private rooms. Daisy is in one, helping Alicia to recover, but he leads the way to another. He wants privacy for this.

Jemma, to her credit, only hesitates momentarily before stepping inside with him and, if the slide of the closing door disturbs her, not even he can tell.

“Why?” he asks, seeing no reason to beat around the bush.

She wanders the small space, giving her attention to the pale walls and plush seats rather than to him. “I saw what you did to Lucio,” she says, confirming his suspicions that she would be the one to study the corpse. “And I heard Malick’s description of it - and your plans.”

Now she dares to meet his eyes, and he smiles. “Malick does not know my plans.”

“No,” she agrees readily, “but he knows what _his_ plans were. You didn’t come back to raise an army.”

He could confirm her suspicions, but he’d much rather see just where this train of thought is headed.

She takes to pacing, as though she’s chasing her conclusion to drive it out. “Daisy took the crystals - but of course you don’t need those to force more Inhumans through transition, not when HYDRA has stockpiles of the contaminated fish oil pills. And, since Petrov was killed, you haven’t made a single push to gather all the Inhumans in one place.” She pauses at the windows, and he’d think she was looking out at the clouds if he didn’t know better. She turns all at once to say, “You’re planning on making more Inhumans, aren’t you?”

He tips his head to one side, acknowledging her correct assumption.

She nods to herself and moves to sit on the edge of the seats.

“That explains my motivations,” he says when she doesn’t speak again, “but not yours.”

She sighs. “You’re not planning on killing people, you’re just going to-” she lifts her fingers to her head- “to drug us, I suppose.” She doesn’t say it with disgust, but with a kind of resignation, almost a longing.

He approaches her to sit at her side. She looks away, but doesn’t flinch when he rests his hand on hers between them. “And you are in pain,” he says. “You have been since long before you came to us. And no one sees it.”

“It’s not their fault,” she whispers readily, as though the words are rote.

“You want me to take it away.” He touches the spot on her head she gestured to a moment ago and slides his hand around the back of her neck, kneading gently as Will used to do.

She shudders out a breath. “I know you’ll win,” she says. “I know- Some things are just meant to be, and- and I’ve seen what you can do, the things you did on Maveth.” Her hand fists beneath his. “But I also know you’ll need help. You have to reverse engineer what the Kree did, figure out how to do it to humans en masse, it’s a big job.”

“One you are well-suited for, I suppose?”

She meets his eyes almost defiantly. “Yes. If you promise not to hurt the others.”

She’s not in any position to be making demands, but then he can’t exactly force her to help him.

“They will try to stop me. Surely you don’t expect Coulson to let me keep two of his people.”

Her mouth thins into a hard line. “You’re supposed to be HYDRA’s _god_. I expect you to find a way.”

He smiles, glad to see some of her fire. Much as he appreciates the offer of help, the quiet acceptance of his victory did not suit her.

“Just as you will find a way to give me my new Inhumans?”

She nods. “Yes.”

He stands, pulling her up with him. She comes easily and, when he again brushes her hair back from her face, closes her eyes. “And then,” he promises, “I will take your pain.”

The longing she feels at that turns the hum into a full-fledged song.

 

 

\-------

 

 

“Well,” Radcliffe says, “that’s just not possible.”

His disbelief is rather surprising, given the ease - and even eagerness, despite his being kidnapped - with which he’s gone along. Hive’s people shift uncomfortably, uncertain how to take the sudden denial from a man who watched them demonstrate their powers with barely a blink and peppered them each with probing questions afterward. Jemma rolls her eyes.

She’s in something of a mood and has been ever since she was introduced to Radcliffe. Hive doesn’t yet know whether her annoyance is the result of Radcliffe’s being forced into his service or of his being here at all when she considers herself up to the task. Either option may result in - or be an indication of - some ulterior motive. Jemma is dangerous, perhaps more so than any of his people, and he cannot allow her seeming agreement with his plans to blind him to that. She cannot be truly trusted until she is under his sway, as the others are.

“No offense, of course,” Radcliffe goes on, “but you just _can’t_ be. Human beings ten thousand years ago just-” he gestures to Hive with his bound hands- “didn’t look like you. So I don’t know what game you’re playing here, Mr. Hive, but you’re not fooling _me_.”

“That isn’t-” Jemma snaps, but Hive cuts her off with a raised hand. Her annoyance with him doubles, and he does regret that; her presence is so much less soothing when she’s unhappy. He fears, if this mood of hers lasts much longer, he will develop a migraine.

“I took this body,” he says, stepping closer to the medical bed Radcliffe is leaning against, “as I have taken countless others.”

Radcliffe looks uneasy at that, but manages to say, “Well, that’s all well and good, I suppose, but it doesn’t exactly prove you’re a-”

“If you would prefer my true face.” He allows Grant Ward to fall away, and a heavy silence comes over the room. Giyera is still away, planting seeds and gathering resources, which means no one here has seen him, not even Jemma, and, though this little display is for Radcliffe’s benefit, he finds himself focusing on the hum of her thoughts.

It is muted, and he imagines she is attempting to prevent herself displaying a physical reaction. The others, of course, have their reactions tempered by their adoration of him; if she were to react with disgust similar to that Radcliffe is trying - and failing - to hide, it would be painfully obvious.

“Is this more to your liking?” Hive asks. He means to add a threatening advancement to the words, but warmth from Jemma stops him. It is all he can do to keep from facing her, a motion which he presumes will stop this feeling entirely. It isn’t fear, that much is certain, but she isn’t even allowing herself to feel it deeply enough for it to be named.

He pulls back, resuming the shape the mortals find more comforting. From the corner of his eye, he sees Jemma turn away. “No,” he says, “I don’t imagine it is. But you will learn.”

Radcliffe chuckles falsely to himself. “Yes, I suppose I will.”

 

 

\-------

 

 

The first test is a monumental failure, so much so that they have to relocate the lab to a new building in order to escape the stench left behind by rapidly decaying flesh. But of course Jemma can’t leave well enough alone, and he finds her there still, examining one of the more whole bodies.

“I’m busy,” she says curtly when she catches sight of him. He doesn’t need to feel her emotions to know she’s mad - furious, even. Between Grant and Will, he has enough memory of her temper to know he’d best keep his distance and so approaches in such a way that the corpse separates them.

He clasps his hands behind his back and waits to see if she will acknowledge him again. When she does not, he says, “You were right.”

She makes an indelicate scoff and asks, “Is that your idea of an apology?” as she moves to the shelves. They haven’t yet been cleared out - nothing has save for Radcliffe’s notes so he can try to figure where he went wrong.

Jemma knows where he went wrong.

She told them right away his plan wouldn’t work, that Hive’s blood would poison any human injected with it, but Radcliffe - and, Hive admits, he himself - was too eager for results to listen.

It did not help that he allowed his suspicions of Jemma to poison him against her word.

It would be a reckless plan - to infiltrate his ranks only to slow his progress - but isn’t that just like her? If she thought she was saving lives, she wouldn’t balk at risking hers.

The box she’s attempting to drag down is both too high and too heavy for her. Setting aside his own safety - it’s not as though she can do him any _permanent_ damage - he steps up behind her to retrieve it. “When are you going to learn to ask for _help_?” he sighs and drops the box at her feet.

She doesn’t move to open it, and he straightens to find her staring with fearful eyes.

“Was that-” She stops herself and walks away, the box forgotten.

He looks from her to it and back again before following. Somehow, even with ten-thousand years’ worth of hosts to draw on, he’s managed to repress the memory of how _confusing_ women are.

“What?” he prods, joining her at the corpse’s side.

“Nothing.”

“It was something.” She keeps her tongue, and he reaches for her hair. “ _Jemma_ -”

She jerks away, her eyes dancing so as not to land on him.

“Tell me,” he demands, hardening his tone.

“Was that Ward or-?” She can’t complete the question, but then she doesn’t have to. He knows. Both men were exasperated at her lack of respect for her own height, and without any effort at all he can think of instances where each made similar statements.

He doesn’t know for certain he was drawing on either of their memories, but he knows it is more likely to be Grant than Will and, as that will distress her, he chooses to lie.

“Will,” he says softly, allowing his lingering love to mix with just a smidgen of Grant’s caring. “He is always … _more_ when you’re near.”

She nods to herself and looks, absurdly, to the body beside them. Her avoidance of him is not new, but ever since he allowed her to see his true face it has become more vexing and, with Will and Grant so near to the surface, he finds himself hurt by her indifference.

It confuses him as much as it pains him. He is not lessened by her lack of attention, it does not harm him in any way, and he knows that soon enough, when her work is accomplished, _she_ will crave _his_ attention, so why does the lack of hers sting him so keenly now?

“From here on out,” he says, pushing aside his disquieting emotions, “you will be in charge, not Radcliffe.”

“Thank you,” she says, and still she does not look at him.

He leaves before he can do something about it.

 

 

\-------

 

 

He brings the Reapers - as much for her as for himself. She did admit, eventually, that Radcliffe’s core plan was solid, but that anything other than pure Kree blood would be useless. And, as they only need one living Kree, that leaves the other to him.

He has not allowed wrath to often rule him over the centuries. He devastated Maveth in the heat of the moment and killed Will in retribution for allowing Jemma to escape, but those were isolated incidents. He is well aware, with a lifespan such as his, that if he feeds his demons too frequently, they will grow stronger than him.

But today he will give them their fill.

The Kree took _everything_ from him time and time and time again. He will see this Reaper pay for his race’s crimes.

The fool speaks when he should fight, wasting energy on emotional jabs that only drive Hive to fight all the more viciously. They made him and now they have the audacity to try _destroying_ him? They never understood the grandeur of what they were accomplishing, saw only their petty squabbles and wars. They were as children playing in the mud who accidentally dig up rare jewels, but even a child would recognize the worth in something so precious. The Kree never cared to see his.

SHIELD agents hover in the hall outside, waiting to make their move, whatever that may be. He has not acknowledged them yet, but is forced to when May cries out. “Simmons!”

She tries to grab for Jemma as she tears past the agents, through the door the Kree came through, and skitters to a halt a scant ten feet behind the monster. “The other one is dead,” she pants. “There’s nothing left.”

No. _No._

 _How?_ How could Daisy allow this to happen? Unless, she too is…

The thought is fleeting. He’s been distracted, and the Reaper has seen his chance and seized it. In a heartbeat, the Kree is across the room, clutching Jemma to him as a shield.

He sniffs her hair even as her fingers dig into his arm so that she won’t be choked by her own weight - or, worse, impaled on the blade resting almost lazily beneath her breasts. “This one isn’t an Inhuman.”

Hope that he will spare her flares for one brief moment.

“But she aids you.”

The blade rises, forcing Jemma’s chin back. Her eyes shut and-

Hive hears the almost song again, the one his promise to bring her peace elicited.

“No!” he roars at the same moment May does. She is faster, shooting the Kree’s arm. The blade falls as May rushes in to pull Jemma free before the Kree can think to snap her neck. They fall to the ground, taking cover. Which is for the best as Hive leaps in, using his fists until the Kree’s lame attempts at defending himself cease.

Panting, he turns to Jemma and May, both still on the floor, both watching him. _Jemma_ is watching him.

“Now!” May yells.

He looks to the others just in time to see the projectile before it tears through his shoulder. He glances at the hole it leaves behind, unimpressed. More blows follow, tiny pinpricks of bullets.

Wisely, SHIELD chooses to retreat. Foolishly, they attempt to drag Jemma with them.

He advances through the continuing barrage and, when one of the agents - someone Ward never considered important enough to even recognize - gets in his way, he feasts. An agonized scream fills the air. When it ceases, when he pulls himself back together again that he might heal, he finds he’s holding Jemma’s arm. He does not remember reaching for her again after his path was blocked, but he’s glad he did.

He’s not certain she is though.

Slowly, carefully, he lifts his free hand, well aware such a motion is likely to scare her after what she just witnessed. Or it won’t, and that might be worse. She shakes - though she was shaking before - but does not flinch when his hand cups her cheek. Her focus remains on the middle-distance, and he gently turns her face to him.

“I would not harm you,” he promises when she finally - maybe - gives him her focus. He’s not certain he _could_ harm her. The part of him that is Will could not live with such an act, and even the part that is Ward still feels some guilt for harming her when last they met.

She continues to shake, more violently every second. With nothing else to do, he pulls her to him. She clings to his coat, forehead resting against his collarbone. Her skin is so chilled he can feel her stealing his warmth through the layers of fabric.

Thinking of her earlier, almost joyful resignation, he holds her tighter, resting his head on hers. She still lives, still breathes. She has not been harmed.

After long minutes, he moves her to the pews and sits her down so that he might decide what to do next. Jemma must be cared for and the Kree moved, but how to accomplish both? If he leaves one, SHIELD might return to steal it from him. And he does not yet know which, if any, of his people survived the Reapers.

He paces up and down the aisle Jemma sits in - one of the few undamaged in the fight, tapping furtively at the seatbacks along the way. The motion reminds him of the damage done his clothing and, suddenly annoyed by the frayed edges, he tears off first his coat and then his shirt.

“Hail HYDRA,” Jemma giggles behind him.

The teasing is the friendliest she has ever been with him and the return of her speech, let alone something as valuable as joy, instantly lightens his mood. “Are you trying to seduce me?” he asks, matching her tone as he turns.

His mood instantly sours. If she was ever smiling, he does not see it. It’s not his words that have robbed her of it, the change is too swift for that, but her hand is at her mouth, holding back sobs as her entire body shakes worse than ever it did before.

“Jemma,” he says, and swiftly moves to sit with her and again hold her.

She leans into him, her tears falling from her cheeks to his bare chest.

“There,” he sooths, running a hand over her back. His heart aches in memory of her crying on Maveth. Even a host removed from those events, he will do whatever it takes to ease her pain.

She hasn’t yet stopped when she puts a hand to his chest and pushes herself up. “Can you,” she asks, voice hoarse and thick, “can you change?”

He tips his head to one side, confused.

She takes a deep breath to fortify herself that she might meet his eyes. “Can you not be Grant Ward? Please?”

Shock freezes him momentarily. “You would prefer-?” He cannot finish the question and instead does as she’s asked, alters his appearance to that which so often sparks terror in those who look on him.

She relaxes immediately and nods. “Thank you.”

She leans into his chest again, calmer now, and he can do nothing save hold her close until Daisy comes looking for them.

 

 

\-------

 

 

“No.”

The pronouncement is met with various reactions. Behind Jemma, who made the succinct statement, Daisy sits, horrified, on the bed to which she’s been confined ever since Jemma discovered she’d been shot. The assembled members of the Watchdogs continue to look on all of them with hatred and fear. Radcliffe seems eager to know whether this will see Jemma usurped from her position as head researcher.

Hive only sighs. “You said you needed test subjects.”

“ _Willing_ test subjects,” Jemma snaps. “It’s bad enough I can’t perform animal trials, I’m not going to exacerbate the issue by using your _prisoners_.”

Her anger feeds his own - he really might have a migraine this time - and he finds himself, with all his ten thousand years’ of experience, rising to the bait of a woman who’s barely surpassed a quarter-century. “If you do not have use for them,” he says with false calm, “then I certainly do.”

She pales. “You promised-”

“Our deal was for your friends’ lives - and I have spared them.”

“You killed a SHIELD agent last week!”

And it has taken her an entire week to bring it up, but he doesn’t point out that hypocrisy. “And what was her name?” he asks. “You were there, you saw her die. Tell me her name.”

Jemma’s mouth works, soundless.

He steps into her space. “Our deal was that your friends would live, no matter how they interfered in my plans, and I have honored that. Now you have the chance to save these men’s lives.”

“I don’t know if it will work,” she tries softly. The anger is seeping out of her, dampened by her belated guilt that she could not save the agent’s life. “There are too many variables, I don’t even have the same equipment the Kree used. And-” She looks to the men, all lined up in a row for her inspection. She wants to save them, even as she doesn’t want to do this to them against their will.

He leans in so that she cannot see his face when he says, “You’ve never failed before.” The voice is, by necessity, Grant’s, but the tone and encouragement is all Will. She recognizes it, as he knew she would, and relaxes somewhat.

“They don’t want this,” she says, still holding to her principles.

“They will.” He moves to stand behind her so that she can face the men while he speaks. “Their anger comes from fear, they’re hurting. We can save them from that.” He rests his hands on her shoulders. “And then I can save you.”

That decides her.

 

 

\--------

 

 

He joins her in the dark of one of the freight containers. The first man died here three days ago, and she thought she was so _close_ with the second. He did not perish here, of course, that container still holds the remains of the chrysalis he never emerged from.

She’s getting closer.

But of course she knows that and hearing so will not ease her pain. He wishes he could take it, as he has Daisy’s. As he settles beside her on the cold floor and brushes the hair from her face, he wishes, more than anything, that he had the power to end this suffering that hangs over her as a shroud.

“I’m sorry,” he says, for his own lack as well as hers. He trails his fingers through her hair to drop an arm across her shoulders, lending her stability.

Her eyes are shut, as they were when he entered, and she opens them as she says, “Could- oh.”

She is the only person who has ever truly smiled at his real face. The Kree were pleased with the transformation they had wrought - at first - and many of his worshippers were honored to die having seen their god in the flesh and his fellow Inhumans are always pleased to see him however he may appear, but only Jemma’s joy has that note of purity.

“Thank you.” She hesitates and then rolls to her knees. “I want to not be sad,” she says.

“I know.” He cups her jaw. “And you won’t. Soon.”

She curls her fingers in the front of his coat. “Sooner,” she says hesitantly, “would be better.”

There are a million voices in his head, eager to identify her meaning, but none of them are able to breach the surface of his disbelief.

She kisses him. He thinks it must be a misunderstanding, and then her tongue is in his mouth. He thinks she must realize she is revolted, and then her fingers are teasing his tentacles. He thinks she will come to her senses, and then she is dragging him down over her.

He thinks wrong at every turn, and she continues to surprise him. Her soundless song fairly echoes off the walls of the container and fills every inch of him, leaving him shaking. He has never felt anything as glorious.

He knows, after, that she must find a way, he must give her peace, for there is no other way he can repay her for what she’s given him.

 


End file.
